Do tanks get more “respect” by the players? Do people look up to them?
Honest question.
It’s not hard. You already know how to dps, so it’s really the same thing but you try to attract the attention of enemies instead of getting rid of aggro.
If there’s a lone enemy attacking someone else, use your taunt ability. Aoe dps grabs groups pretty easy. Honestly you almost just dps, it’s just different abilities. Blood dk is certainly easier to learn with, same with bear. The only annoying one is monk because of how they deal with incoming damage. And if you interrupt mobs, you’ll be that next level of skilled tank.
More people should try it. It’s not as difficult as they’ve built it up to be in their heads. Only really high key players have to know lots but they will have run the dungeons so many times they’ll likely already know how to tank them.
It is also pretty much an instant queue for dungeons right now so definitely do it if you’re grinding levels.
Step one… Get off a Warlock. 
Also don’t really “save” defensives. Unless you know you need one for some specific encounter, sitting on defensives is wasted. Use them to be aggressive, not reactively.
Druid is probably the easiest tank. Then probably war or pal. Definitely not BDK, which requires a lot of reactive gameplay and cooldown timing. BDK is probably the hardest to play well tbh, along with VDH which is deceptively simple but has a lot of cooldown timing.
I charge things, push buttons that have shield icons on buttons, and then thunderclap and yell a lot.
Yeah because the tank sets the tempo and route and generally leads the run. And if you mess up the whole group wipes usually.
Tanking is insanely easy. Know the route? Cool. Go stand there and mash literally anything.
How I tank is I run into a dungeon and pull all mobs to the first boss and let the DPS aoe everything down
No it really doesn’t work like that in M+.
Well I think there are some others.
- You have to know every dungeon, every pull
- You have to use your mitigation well and know how to use your cooldowns
- I recommend “threat plates” addon so you can see when you don’t have aggro and then you have to taunt the right mobs
- You should know when to interrupt stuff
And that’s just a start, it does take some learning.
Tank DPS isn’t irrelevant in M+, high tank dps makes a huge difference in timing. Ditto healer dps with good healers.
1 Like
Ok i have a possibly dumb question here… i have never tanked a real group. I have in the npc dungeons but its not something i let worry me.
How do you hold aggro? i know there is the taunt but it has a cd (not long but still)! Do you just spam taunt at everything or is there something else?
Plater, elvui plates, or threatplates are all good. I think plater is the best and customizable. Something like this is pretty much essential for keeping aggro, interrupts, etc.
All of the tanks have AOE abilities that do high threat:
War → Thunderclap
BDK → Blood boil
VDH → immolate/sigil of flame
Pal → Consecrate
I forget the druid and BM ones because I haven’t played those in a while.
1 Like
Step 0: You are always the reason why we wipe.
Step 1: Don’t Play BrM Monk Blizzard hates you for existing
Step 2: Play a meta tank
Step 3: Hold Aggro
Step 4: Plan M+ route
Step 5: Learn Taunt Swap
Step 6 Watch movies because tank is easy.
Only move when absolutely necessary.
Nothing more annoying than a tank that constantly is moving.
Also, keep the mobs in the AoE.
1 Like
I mean you’re moving all the time to avoid mechanics in higher keys. It’s good to learn how to move early on.
ok that makes sense. thank you!! i lvl my DH and Druid in tank spec since its easy, ive just never done it in real groups.
Yeah you basically use those abilities for your main AOE threat, and then you can use targeted abilities, taunt, etc. for stragglers, or class specific things. Like with BDK grip is a taunt also, so you can just grab stragglers. VDH has glaive throw. etc.
Basically what happens is:
Run to pack and use aggro ability + aoe damage ability, then once aggro is secure grab another if you and healer can handle it.
Probably generally using 1-2 defensive cooldowns for each new pack in M+ (e.g. dancing rune weapon, vampiric blood, etc.). They have cooldown reduction talents so you cycle between them to always have something up.
Most tanks also have other basic defensive things they need to keep up always like bone shield for BDK, the armor holy power ability for pal, shield block (I think) for war, etc.
Then you’re trying to group things in a pile and generally focus your interrupts on high impact abilities that might wipe the group (such as AOE fears or whatever). You should also use aoe interrupts when possible (like the warrior stun, blinding sleet, war stomp, etc.)
Then you’re trying to optimize DPS (like getting in as many big swings as possible with dancing rune weapon)
Use group defensives like AMZ, rallying cry, etc. at appropriate times.
To do it well you need to know all the pulls and how you’re going to position them and the abilities that need to be controlled. But you learn that over time just by doing a lot of runs.
1 Like